Colorado 2025

 Our last day at RMNP we wanted to take the Trail Ridge Road to the highest elevation in the park, about 12000 ft. Connie again worked her magic in getting a timed pass for 9-11 AM so we could get going early, but still get breakfast and check out the Stanley hotel (Stephen King's "the Shining") before the drive up. The drive to the top was a well built mountain road, full of switch-backs and almost no space to the sheer fall-offs in many places. All this was especially hairy since we were driving a gigantic (for me anyway) Ford 150 truck! Connie was quite nervous at times, but we managed it well and enjoyed the many pull-out sight seeing stops. The end point on this route was the park's Alpine Visitor Center,  just past the high altitude point.  Our plan was to return to Nancy and Pete's via Boulder and to stop at the Celestial Tea plant for a tour. Celestial tea is one of our favorites and so it was a must for us. Here are a few photos from the day. Stanley Hote...

 We drove north to Estes Park, at the entrance to RMNP, late in the afternoon of day 3. Got ourselves settled and did a stop at the visitor center and an easy dinner. The plan for day 4 was focused on a hike at Bear Lake in the park. It's a bit tricky because we needed park passes plus a timed entry pass for each day at the park. Connie managed to get the best passes when they became available the evening before. So day 4 started with an early breakfast at The Egg and a walk about at the town before our 11 AM timed entry to the park. Weather was beautiful and it was about a 10 min drive to the shuttle and another 10 min to Bear lake.  We were concerned about the 9500 ft elevation so planned to do the 3/4 mile hike with little elevation change around Bear Lake. Connie and I handled the hike with no problems so decided on a second hike. The second hike was round trip to Nymph Lake, which involved about a 200 foot elevation climb and a moderate mile hike. All was well and the sce...

Day 3 began a 3 day excursion to Boulder and then the Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). Boulder is a short 35 minute drive north of Golden. Connie and I planned a half day there before heading further north to RMNP. At Boulder we decided to do a hike to the flatirons rock formations in Chautauqua park followed by lunch in downtown Boulder and a stroll along it's pedestrian shopping street, Pearl Street.  The hike in Chautauqua park was known as Chautauqua trail. This trail was posted as "easiest", but it turned out to be almost as difficult, to us, as our mesa hike on the previous day! As it turned out it was 480 foot elevation gain in about 3/4 a mile with a mile and a half total ccircuit. So it was a bit more strenuous than what we expected, but it was worth it nevertheless! The flatiron formations were beautiful and the surrounding forests lovely. Pearl Street was a fun walk with many interesting shops and restaurants. After Boulder we drove north to Estes Park at R...

 Day two started partly cloudy, but a good time to hike up north table mountain. It's a mesa, flat top mountain with well defined hiking trails. It's literally behind the neighborhood where we are staying in Golden at our friends, Peter and Nancy. The view from their house made it look like a fairly easy climb. But perspective can really fool you. What we didn't realize was that it's a 550 foot climb on a mile long path to the top! The total hike was 3.6 miles at a starting altitude of about 6000 feet. I made it, but with a few breather breaks. Connie did much better than me!  What was amazing is how adapted (altitude), healthy and friendly all the fellow hikers are here. Some were actually jogging and mountain biking UP the incline, while I was huffing and puffing! So here are a few pics. The mile long ramp up Cactus at the mesa top View at the mesa top I made it!

 Connie and I are traveling to and around Colorado to meet some friends and to tour some of the sights there. Our friends are Nancy and Pete Torpey from our mutual work at Xerox. The Torpey's moved to Golden Colorado a number of years ago and this is our first time we've visited them. So our itinerary is to stay with Nancy and Pete for a few days on our arrival then to do some side trips to the north (Boulder and the Rocky Mountain National Park) and another to Colorado Springs to the south. We'd stop back in with them between and after those excursions. So here we are in day 1 in Golden. We visited the Red Rocks amphitheater and then nearby dinosaur ridge.  Here's some photos -  Red Rocks amphitheater  In the amphitheater Nancy, Pete and Connie  Dinosaur ridge